Carcassone

The day and life in the castle at Carcassonne

Today was our first day at Carcassonne castle, yes we are staying at another castle! Just one word describes this castle, WOW! Carcassonne was a fortified castle and Wavell was more of a palace for King’s and Queen’s.
Carcassonne was first a Roman fortification then later on became a medieval fortification! People were afraid to attack it because of its walls and turrets. It was attacked by the crusaders because the people living inside were Cathars whom the pope didn’t like. The crusaders defeated them because of the siege. There is more history but you are not reading this blog for history you are wondering what we are doing, right?
Well I, okay we, found all about this castle on our tour! We went on a tour of the ramparts and of the castle and this interesting French guy give us a tour in English. The castle was actually in horrible shape in the 1800’s till the French gov’t realized how much of an attraction it would be so they rebuilt it and we are happy about this.
We are staying inside the castle at the Youth hostel, however we are paying big bucks for it. The breakfast they are serving leaves something to be desired.
Okay getting back to the tour, we saw a huge theater that can hold up to two thousand people and is full during the festival during the spring. Also they hold jousting tournaments in July and August, all this we missed oh well, we avoided the crowds though!
When we got to the castle it was 25 c and the day of the tour it was only 12! Egads the weather followed us. We were planning on staying a few more days however we want warmer weather so we are leaving tomorrow, to go even further south.
Tonight we went into town to get a few pictures of the castle at night however they we wish that we had taken some pics the night before from a different road. However here is a picture of the castle at night. Oh another fact is that everything shuts down early now that there are not enough tourist around, drats.
This area, again would be a wonderful area to go riding in!
We met this two guys from Quebec earlier in the day and it was nice to talk to some folds from Canada. That night we shared a meal with them since Jane had overdone it with her cooking!

Ta ta for now, Mike, I am writing this blog from Spain!